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Factory would shine on upstate

Gigawatt plant would propel expansion of clean-tech start-up

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Elon Musk's plan to build a massive solar panel factory in Buffalo by 2016 could be just the beginning of something much larger for upstate's high-tech economy.

Musk, the Silicon Valley inventor who started the electric car maker Tesla, needs to build the facility — called a "gigawatt" factory because it would produce 1,000 megawatts worth of solar panels a year — to fuel the expansion of SolarCity, another of his clean-tech start-ups that has become the largest solar panel installer in the country.

SolarCity is acquiring a solar manufacturer called Silevo that was already planning a smaller factory in Buffalo in conjunction with the SUNY College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering in Albany, which has been building a solar technology cluster in the western part of the state and recently started construction on new, $191 million clean energy lab at its Fuller Road campus.

But Musk told stock analysts on Tuesday that the Buffalo factory — which would be the largest solar factory ever built in the United States and employ several thousand workers — would pale in comparison to a second factory that SolarCity would need to build soon after if the company's growth projections are correct.

Although the company lost $75 million during the first quarter of 2014 and has been mired in accounting issues in recent months that have led to a shareholder lawsuit, the company says it is on pace to install 1,000 megawatts worth of solar panels in 2015, double its projections for this year.

"The Buffalo facility, it's almost like a pilot plant for what's to come," Musk said.

Musk said that SolarCity is already interested in building a 10-gigawatt factory — and New York could land that plant as well, although other states would also be considered.

"That could be an extension of the Buffalo factory or it could be (built) in other locations," Musk said.

Musk and the co-founders of SolarCity, brothers Lyndon and Peter Rive, who are his cousins, are currently in discussions with the Cuomo administration over potential incentives for the factory — and likely a research and development agreement with the NanoCollege, which is also in discussions with a Japanese solar manufacturer for a factory also in the western part of the state.

Musk said that the Buffalo factory would use power from Niagara Falls — likely through the New York Power Authority as part of the state's potential incentive package — although neither he nor the Rive brothers would say what incentives would be required.

Musk is a master, however, at drumming up excitement for large manufacturing projects. Several states in the western U.S. and Texas are reportedly vying for another "gigawatt" factory that his Tesla company is planning to build to make electric batteries, which would be shipped to a plant Tesla owns in California for final assembly into the all-electric cars.